Fatal Frame IV
by Fante
Summary: Akemi Matsushita has been close friends with Noriko Oshiro as long as they can remember, but Akemi has been waking in the dead of night, disturbed by haunting visions, and Noriko has vanished... Rated for frightening content. Fatal Frame c Tecmo.
1. A Brief Note

A quick Author's Note: At some point between the beginning and roughly halfway through this story, my personality went from the relatively eager worker to the intense procrastinator that doesn't see the need to finish things that aren't worth a grade. As such, there was a huge (like, over a year-long) gap between chapter twelve (-ish, as I rewrote that chapter) and chapter thirteen.

I'm not going to lie; I'm not happy with the way this turned out. I rushed it badly, wanting to finish the story by the end of 2009 for the people that did care and wanted to see it end. From chapter 12/13 on is essentially first draft, having only been quickly checked for spelling errors.

But still, it is a finished work and a fanfiction, so I present it here regardless. Someday, I may rewrite it, but I'm not promising anything.

Enjoy.

-Fante


	2. Prologue

Fatal Frame IV

Prologue

_"It's... cold..." The voice was female and weak, her strength slipping away._

_"And... dark..."_

_"I can't... can't move..."_

_"I can't breathe!"_

_"I'm dying... All for..."_

_Her voice fell away, creating a terrible, sickening silence in the dark. She'd died…_

_Then someone screamed, and for a split second, there was the image of a woman or girl in a kimono, and a horrible, piercing cold. The image was so fleeting that nothing else could be determined about the woman, but it was clear she had hurt someone..._

* * *

Akemi bolted upright in bed, her breathing still rapid and the sheets slightly damp. She rubbed and massaged her face with her hands for a moment, calming herself down. When she felt better, she turned to look at the clock. It was hard to tell the time, as the clock was illuminated only by moonlight, but Akemi could tell it was somewhere around one in the morning.

She looked back at her hands, feeling a mixture of fear and confusion. That vision was the second one this week...

Akemi buried her face in her hands, shaking her head slightly.

_What's happening to me!?_


	3. Obscura

A/N- Some of the sections cut off by rulers may be irregular, meaning that the above sentence may be double-spaced from the ruler and the lower sentence triple-spaced. This is because I'm still learning how to work the thing, and it shouldn't be a huge bother anyway. :)

Chapter One

"Obscura"

Several almost-sleepless hours later, Akemi's alarm clock rang. For a moment, she considered hitting the snooze button and granting herself another few moments of blissful, thought-free oblivion. She almost followed through with this desire, but the thought of falling asleep, and possibly having another vision, was too frightening.

As she dragged herself to the shower, Akemi tried her hardest to remember even the faintest, most fleeting dreams. As usual, she found nothing but the vision sitting clear and bright in her memories. Her sleep had been empty of dreams.

While the hot water cleansed her body, and her mind started to whir into full wakefulness, she was unable to stop the wave of confusion and helplessness that overwhelmed her. There seemed to be no way she could stop these nightmares, visions, hallucinations... Whatever they were. Desperately, Akemi wanted to talk to someone about it, but as she ran down the mental list of people she knew, the answer was the same for each person: _No, never, unthinkable._

Then Akemi's mental scanner stopped at a certain name. She even froze in the shower for a minute, her slightly-groggy brain pulling up memories tied to that name. After a moment of consideration, she nearly smacked herself in the forehead for not realizing it sooner. Once the urge passed, Akemi found herself glad that she had come to that conclusion, albeit late.

Noriko Oshiro and Akemi Matsushita were as close as sisters, having been best friends longer than either of them could remember. They told each other almost everything, be it the hot gossip of the day or guilt and secrets.

Several years ago, Noriko had told Akemi a deep secret, so hidden from the world that only she and her mother knew it. It had been the mark of ultimate trust.

Noriko had told Akemi that she could see things. Things that, no matter how hard someone stared at them or how brightly they were lit, could not be seen. Noriko had told her that she could see the dead.

For months Akemi drifted between skepticism and belief, eventually settling on the border between them. But no matter where she sat on the issue, Akemi never even _thought_ of looking at her friend differently, or telling someone else about her secret. They remained as close as ever, if not more so.

* * *

Once she was clean and clothed, Akemi wiped the remaining condensation from the mirror, pausing to look at herself. 

Akemi Matushita had a diamond-shaped face, her jaw lightly touched by her short, straight black hair. Her father's eyes, a simple brown, stared back at her.

She wore her favorite outfit today; a dark blue vest with thin, horizontal stripes that were only slightly lighter than the rest of the garment. Under this vest sat a simple, long-sleeved white shirt. Diagonally crossing both layers of clothing, from one hip to the other, was a plain black belt with silver buckles. A regular pair of jeans clothed her legs, and her feet were protected by strapless black shoes.

Satisfied, Akemi went downstairs for breakfast.

* * *

_Well, there's my luck..._

Noriko hadn't been at school today. Akemi's first instinct was to call her when she got home, though as time passed, she remembered that a stomach bug had been going around. If Noriko was sick, she probably wouldn't be in the mood for talking.

Later in the day, Akemi went to her room, making sure the door was shut, and slipped to her closet. She stood before the door, and, purely out of habit, looked around to make sure nobody was nearby. Of course, nobody was.

Akemi carefully and slowly opened the door to avoid making any noise. When it was open, she crouched and started to reach towards a small pile of clothing in the corner. Her hand was about halfway there, and then she hesitated. After a moment of consideration, she changed her mind, withdrawing her arm and staring at the little mound of cloth. Slowly, a memory came to mind.

* * *

_The sun shone brightly on the thick, lush forest, the leaves coloring everything in shades of green. Akemi, dressed in her usual outfit, and Noriko were walking down a dirt path. Next to them, a slow but powerful river flowed, its brown water obscuring any fish that swam by._

_Noriko had a round face, sometimes feathered by a stray, black hair. Her grey eyes seemed to be filled with a kind, soft light, like that of a candle. Like Akemi, she was clothed and her hair set in her favorite style and outfit. Her hair was about shoulder length and tied back with a black ribbon. She was dressed in a dark-gray shirt with a neckline that curved downwards, making an oval shape. About a third of this oval was actually white cloth that sat under the rest of the clothing as though it were a separate shirt. Besides contrasting pleasantly with the grey, it also kept the outfit modest. Noriko also wore a black skirt of decent length, and shoes that were very similar to Akemi's._

_Akemi was gazing at the scenery as they walked, almost staring off into space, but stopped at the sound of Noriko's voice. "Ouch!"_

_Turning, she saw that Noriko was scowling at something half-buried in the riverbank. "Are you okay?" Asked Akemi, hurrying towards her, concerned._

_The other girl nodded. "Yeah, I just stubbed my toe on that stupid thing..." She said, looking down from Akemi's eyes to the rectangular shape in the ground._

_"What is this thing anyway?" Asked Akemi, turning towards the object._

_"I dunno." Replied Noriko, a small part of her mind starting to whisper and tremble as her friend crouched down._

_Akemi reached over and, with both hands, carefully extracted the object from the soft riverbank._

_As it emerged, the girls could see that it was an antique camera of some kind, covered in rust and moist earth. Akemi stood and examined the camera further._

_Even though it may have taken a rough tumble down the river, it was very dry. The lens didn't have so much as a scratch, and there was even some film inside. "Type 7," according to the corresponding characters printed on the individual pieces._

_As Akemi observed the camera, a dark feeling of ownership crept into her, increasing every second._

_'This is **mine.**' Whispered a new, malicious voice in her mind. **'Forever and ever...'**_

_Before she could become too immersed in this new feeling, Noriko's voice broke through the fog. _

_"They threw it away..." She said quietly, talking to nobody but herself._

_Turning, Akemi saw that she had a strange, blank expression, staring numbly at the camera. She paused. "Uhm... Come on, let's go home..."_

_Noriko seemed to come back to the present time and space, making eye contact with Akemi again and smiling nervously. "Yeah, let's."_

_On the entire trip home, Noriko kept eyeing the camera nervously, and Akemi was too obsessed to care...  
_

* * *

Akemi Matushita, having changed her mind, withdrew from the closet, stood, and shut the door. 


	4. Vanish

A/N- Comments here: fante. livejournal. com/60085.html

A/N- Remove the spaces, of course.

Chapter Two  
"Vanish"

_The vision was brief and simple, but it didn't need to be very long or complex to provide the horrible, wrenching sensation of fear._

_It was Noriko, standing in a forest somewhere. An old path of some kind, long grown over by plant life, waited under her feet._

_"I suppose it's time... To go now..." She said softly, looking up to see the full moon._

_Silently, Noriko Oshiro turned around and walked into the darkness behind her._

* * *

Akemi was sitting in bed, legs swung over and her body half-standing before she even registered that she was awake. She forced herself to sit down, eyes wide in the midnight darkness, and shook her head several times. _No, it can't be..._

While all of her other visions felt oddly metaphorical or symbolic, telling of things long gone, this one seemed to be impossibly real. It seemed to speak "It's happening here and **now.** Hurry, get to it."

As Akemi examined the vision, panic started to creep in, robbing her of conscious control and awareness. She dressed as fast as she could and was halfway to her door when she forced herself to stop. Feeling a tug, she looked towards her still-open closet, starting at the bundle of clothes in the corner. She quietly walked to it, and, feeling rather zombie-like, extracted the Camera Obscura with both hands.

Little had changed since the girls found the camera, with the exception that the girls had added a black strap to it, so that it could be worn when not in use.

_How could this be useful?_ Akemi asked herself as she silently pulled the strap over her head, the camera's weight becoming strangely comforting. "It doesn't even work..." She quietly thought aloud. Almost halfheartedly, she pulled the camera to eye level and pressed the shutter button multiple times. As usual, there wasn't even an empty click; the button just slid as though not connected to the rest of the camera at all.

That same, faint whisper that had claimed ownership of the camera answered her. _"It will all be okay, always okay, nothing can hurt you now...Listen to your instincts..."_

Fear started to trickle through the numbness, and Akemi swallowed. _I need a flashlight..._

* * *

As she carefully padded and pawed through the house, Akemi had hoped that she simply couldn't find a flashlight, or that she would make too much noise and be caught. Though wether fortunate or otherwise, she found a typical, working flashlight in a spare closet. It seemed to be part of a kit in case of black-outs, and she felt rather guilty, but she didn't seem to have any other choice. 

She nearly stopped her journey at the house's door, frozen in place and staring into the darkness. She considered just standing there forever, flashlight in hand and broken camera around her neck...

She stood there for a full three minutes, memories of Noriko, past and present, starting to slither through her consciousness.

Suddenly, Akemi was aware that if she turned away at this point, she could never attempt this again.

She could never see Noriko again...

And she couldn't stand by and let that happen.

* * *

As soon as the door shut behind her, she felt a strange pulling at her mind, an urge. 

Akemi followed it, and found herself at the edge of a forest. She passed by it every other day, but never dared enter it, especially as a child. The forest always had a sharp air around it that hissed and snapped at everyone that looked at it, though there was nothing wrong with it as far as anyone could tell. This venomous aura seemed a million times magnified in the darkness, and the impartial light of the flashlight showed that there were no animals nearby, not even a single insect.

Yet, the force continued to pull at Akemi's mind, trying to take her in.

_"Follow your instincts..."_ Repeated the voice-but-not-a-voice, falling into a watchful silence.

Not knowing what else to do, Akemi stepped into the forest. As she did, the shadows seemed to grow, claiming her as its own.


	5. Tsukino

Chapter Three

"Tsukino"

Despite what the remains of her logic told her, Akemi continued to follow that strange, paranormal tugging at her mind. Combined with the fear over Noriko's safety, she was barely conscious as she ran through the forest. The few times when her consciousness returned, she checked the forest floor around her to make sure she was following what she could only hope and assume were Noriko's tracks.

Pausing to catch her breath, Akemi noticed that the pulling at her mind had dulled considerably. Looking around as she caught her breath and her heart slowed down, she realized that she was standing in the same place that she had seen... Or thought she had seen... Noriko.

While she looked to her right, she heard a strange noise coming from somewhere in front of her. It sounded like mumbling, though she could only catch a few words, none of which seemed to make sense.

_"Ripping... from you... unlike... forever..."_

Though the words meant nothing, it was the speaker. That was Noriko's voice!

"Noriko!" Akemi cried out, turning her head and rushing in the general direction of her voice, eyes searching for any sign of her friend.

And then several things happened at once, causing her to stumble in confusion. Somewhere off, seemingly in another world, something clattered on stone.

As suddenly and sharply as a snake's bite, the moon and stars had vanished behind a thick layer of clouds, leaving nothing but a dull ambient light. The trees around her suddenly changed, becoming not the random placing of nature but organized cherry blossom trees that must have been beautiful during the day. The path under Akemi's feet was suddenly renewed, becoming a fresh, smooth stone path. The most dramatic change, however, Akemi could not quite see yet.

When Akemi had regained her balance from her stumble, she stared at the path below her for a moment, chest aching somewhat from where the camera had hit her chest. Slowly, she looked up, _knowing_ that something was there.

It was an entire mansion, old, powerful, and probably beautiful at one point. But now, in this unnatural night, its beauty had become sharp menace. Even though there was nothing that could put Akemi in immediate danger, her every instinct told her to run away, as though the mansion were a tiger.

Yet, as with the forest, she knew she had to go in.

But first, she had to find the flashlight. When she'd stumbled, she'd dropped it. Thankfully, the power hadn't switched off, nor did the flashlight seem to be harmed. It had rolled off the path and stopped in the lush grass.

Akemi couldn't help but notice that the grass was a strange shade of gray...

She took the few steps needed to get to the fallen flashlight and knelt. She reached out with her right hand, but her fingers had only just grazed the metal casing when she noticed something white in the corner of her eye. Akemi whipped her head to the left to see what... or who... it was.

There was nothing there.

Not letting her eyes leave that innocent patch of air, Akemi grasped the flashlight and stood.

"I... Is someone there?" She asked the empty air. When nothing happened, Akemi forced herself to dismiss it as nothing.

Looking over the mansion and unable to restrain a shiver, she realized that she _had_ to go in there. Though the tugging was gone for the moment, she knew that Noriko couldn't be anywhere else...

Carefully and quietly, as though it were all a fragile dream that could shatter at any second, Akemi walked to the double-doors of the large building, pausing to examine them. Drawn across both doors was a river encircling a character of some kind.

Running her flashlight over it, Akemi saw that it was the sign of the Tsukino family.

_Strange..._

_I should stop idling around and go inside._

Akemi stashed her flashlight in her pocket, and carefully put her hands on the doors. She gave them a cautious little push, opening the doors about an inch, the wood creaking softly. As she pushed the doors fully open, the creak evolved into a groan of wood as the doors revealed the darkness within. Akemi allowed her hands to fall to her sides, retrieving the flashlight from her pocket.

Shining the light around the room, she saw that it was an entrance room of some kind, old and powerful like the rest of the mansion. There were small areas to her left and right, enclosed by lattice. Inside were several dusty jars and pans, and a shape under a cloth that Akemi preferred not to investigate. Aside from her flashlight, the room was lit only by a handful of white candles in each of the corners, one of which had long gone out. On the far wall were several small paintings, their colors faded by time. Akemi couldn't help but notice that all of them depicted water or aquatic creatures.

Curious, Akemi took a step forward, continuing to shine her flashlight all around the room. She was starting to notice the lack of cobwebs and overall decay when she heard a small creak behind her. Turning, she saw that the doors were slowly shutting behind her.

With a cry of surprise and denial, Akemi started to take a step forward, extending her hands to push the doors back open. Suddenly, they slammed shut, narrowly missing her fingers.

"No, no, no!" She cried out, forcing herself to keep her voice down as she hastily tucked the flashlight under her arm. She grasped the door handles and tugged. There wasn't even a creak or noise of resistance from the door. It was like tugging at concrete...

_"Chiyo..."_ Whispered a soft voice.

Determined to find out what was going on and terrified, she turned as fast as she could, the flashlight still tucked under her arm.

But again, nobody was there...


	6. Twisted Man

Chapter Four

"Twisted Man"

_This place is strange..._

Not knowing where else to go, Akemi took a few more steps into the entrance room. Once she had stepped past the lattice, she immediately noticed that there were two doors, one on the left side of the room and one on the right. Neither of them were particularly elaborate or special.

On a whim, she decided to go through the left door and approached it. When she was several steps away, she noticed that something small was gleaming in the light.

_What is that?_

When Akemi was close enough, she saw that it was a small, brown container. Deciding it was harmless, she picked it up and examined it. There was nothing extremely unusual about it; the only noticeable thing was that the character for "Medicine" had been painted on one side, though the paint was faded and starting to chip.

_Anything could be in this place..._

_It could be useful._

Akemi slipped the container into her right pocket and paused, shining her flashlight around to see if anything else useful was near the door. When nothing was, she continued to the door.

Now that she was closer, Akemi noticed that the door seemed to be very old. Fearing that it could break, she opened the door slowly and carefully, ignoring the chill that ran down her spine at the sound of creaking wood.

* * *

Akemi stood at the end of the plain hallway for a moment, using her flashlight to examine it. There seemed to be both left and right turns at the end of the hall, and a large painting. However, Akemi could only see half of it and she was too far away to notice any details.

_I guess I should go then..._

Akemi was only about halfway down the hall when she heard what sounded like a gasp of pain behind her.

She slowly turned around, her heart pounding, and found herself staring into a grayish face twisted in pain.

Akemi stumbled backwards with a cry of terror, the rest of the man's body coming into view. He wore old, traditional clothing, and seemed to be hovering rather than standing. He was also slightly transparent, yet frighteningly solid, and made small noises of pain almost constantly.

He drifted towards her, the noises becoming louder as he did so. Now that he was moving, Akemi couldn't stop herself from noticing that his left arm dangled in a hideous way.

"What do you want?" She cried out in fear, not knowing what else to do.

The man didn't respond and continued to come towards her. Akemi found herself unable to move, though her mind screamed at her body to run away.

Time seemed to slow as the man raised his right arm, holding his hand high above his head, ready to strike. Suddenly, without any conscious thought, Akemi nearly threw the Camera Obscura to her eye level and pressed the shutter button.

Instead of the usual silent nothings, there was a flash and the distinct clicks and whirs of a photograph just taken. The ghost man let out a cry of pain and stumbled backwards a foot or two, panting.

Encouraged and curious, Akemi edged closer to the ghost, not moving the camera from her eye level. She noticed that the camera buzzed and vibrated slightly under her fingers, and grew more intense as she came closer to the spirit.

The man rose to a standing pose, though he seemed to be dazed. He didn't even look at her, instead staring off into nothingness. The camera buzzed with sharp intensity, and Akemi pressed the shutter button again.

There was another brilliant flash, though the ghost didn't stumble as far as last time. For a moment, Akemi feared that he had somehow grown stronger, but her fears were soon relieved as the ghost bent forward, shielding his eyes and face with his right arm. Even in defeat, his other arm still dangled, useless.

"_Kujiku... Kujiku..."_ He muttered as he faded away, leaving nothing but a slight chill in the air.

* * *

Akemi stood there for a moment, stunned.

"I don't understand..." She muttered, lowering the camera. The camera had never worked before, why would it work now?

Not even bothering to aim or even raise the camera to eye level, Akemi pressed the shutter button. Like almost every other time, nothing happened.


	7. Crushed Woman

Note- I was looking up the meaning of the name 'Akemi' out of curiosity. (I don't know the meaning because I almost never pick character names for their meanings. I think it gets Mary-Sueish and cliché if overdone.) Some sites report 'Akemi' being a male name, but others say it's female. I'm just getting this out of the way before the nitpicky start exploding my PM-inbox.

LJ entry- fante. live journal.c om/64325. html

Chapter Five  
"Crushed Woman"

With the Twisted Man gone, Akemi decided to move on in her quest to find Noriko. Though she was somewhat comforted she seemed to have _some_ form of weapon, it didn't change the shadows in almost every corner.

Since it was the only way to go forward, Akemi chose to continue moving down the hallway, pausing where the hall split into left and right to examine the large, painted tapestry. It was of a large black lake, its waters perfectly smooth. The full moon shone on it, casting a silver light on the darkness. Age had faded the colors, but Akemi still felt uneasy looking at it. She couldn't help but notice that there were no signs of life on or around the lake, and could only hope that they were simply not painted in.

Tearing herself away from the painting, Akemi decided to try the path to her right. It seemed that the large hallway she had just come down was actually only one of a set of twin hallways, though this one was blocked off. Various jars had fallen and shattered, their dark contents hiding what could be dangerous, sharp shards. Shining her flashlight past the remains, she saw that there was another door at the end of this hallway as well, though she could never get to it.

Only a foot or two past the mouth of the second hall was a door. It didn't budge when Akemi attempted to open it, even when she tried her hardest. Perhaps it was broken?

Without any other options, Akemi went to the left. There was a door here as well and, to her relief, it wasn't locked or stuck. As she opened it, the next room unfolded before her.

It was a fireplace room, with the fireplace itself in the middle. Structurally, it was in good shape, but there were telltale signs of chaos. On the walls of this room were several chests, but some of their drawers had been yanked out, the clothing scattered about. A child's drawing of a butterfly lie nearby, torn in two.

Towards the back of the room and to the right was a simple staircase that led up to a platform. Akemi was too far away to see any particular details, only that there were two doors on the platform and that a rail had been built around the perimeter of the platform, obviously for safety. Towards the far left, part of the rail had failed its task and broken. Akemi shivered at the sight of it.

Akemi had taken only one step into the room when she felt that strange tugging and pulling again, directing her somewhere to the right. Shutting the door behind her, Akemi followed the pulling and found herself standing before an ordinary-looking spot on the wall, not far from one of the broken clothing chests. The camera lying on her chest started to buzz, though not with the same loudness and intensity as it had while fighting Twisted Man.

Curious, Akemi raised the Camera Obscura and pressed the shutter button. There was a flash, though it was not as dazzling as before, and the same whirring sounds an ordinary camera made. Strangely enough, the presence disappeared once Akemi had taken the photograph, and a picture slid out of a slot on the bottom of the camera.

Akemi let the camera settle back to its usual spot as soon as she removed the picture with her left hand. Shining the flashlight on the picture with her other hand, her eyes widened with a mixture of pity, shock, and disgust.

_What? How can this be?_

The image on the photograph was of the wall, but everything else had changed, almost completely! The angle of the wall had changed, as though Akemi had taken the picture standing several feet away from where she actually was.

Akemi felt her stomach twist as she studied the most prominent feature of the picture.

A young, pretty girl lay slumped on the wall, dressed in a traditional kimono. Her eyes and mouth were wide in pain and shock, and she seemed to be gasping and panting in horrible pain. Though Akemi couldn't see any visible injuries, her upper body was arched in pain, as expected, but her lower body sat horribly limp.

* * *

Feeling rather sick, Akemi folded the picture of Crushed to Wall and slid it into her back pocket. In an attempt to distract herself from her newborn nausea, she noticed that among the scattered piles of clothing there were several objects gleaming in the dark. As she hurried to examine each object, she saw that most of them were Herbal Medicines, and she gratefully pocketed them.

As she scurried about the room, Akemi started to feel a heaviness on her back. With each object she took, it grew more and more intense until Akemi was forced to turn around, both fearful and annoyed.

The woman in the photograph had become real.

She lay slumped against the wall just like in the picture, but she was moving her head ever so slightly and making small, weak noises of pain.

When the woman made no attempt to harm Akemi or even to move, Akemi started to creep towards her and to the left. If she was going to attack, it would be harder for her to grab Akemi if she wasn't directly in front of her.

Perhaps too soon, Akemi was standing right next to the woman. If she wanted, she could reach over and touch her... Yet, the woman didn't seem to register Akemi's presence at all, continuing to keep her head bowed and soft noises of pain coming from her throat.

"Are you okay?" Akemi asked quietly, speaking more to herself than the woman. She reached over to brush some of the woman's dark hair away from her face.

Without warning, the ghost looked up and lashed out, grabbing Akemi's wrist with both hands. For a terrible second, Akemi could see that her eyes were terribly white and blank, before her fragile reality fell away to another one.

* * *

_The fireplace room was mostly empty, and freezing. Only the woman, a mother, and her son of about seven years were in this room. The woman stayed near the right wall, while the mother held her son by her left. The adults exchanged worried glances as their eyes adjusted to this sharp darkness. When the cold came, it also eliminated all sources of light, from candles to the semi-existent ambient light of daytime._

_Suddenly, several people rushed out from one of the doors on the platform, shouting in fear. They shoved even the mother and child to the side in a blind panic as they ran past, the angry cries of the women and the cry of pain from the child becoming unheard over their shouts. The woman had only just begun to recover and was about to complain about such rudeness when even more people rushed through, making even more noise and somehow taking up even more space._

_And then the woman fell as the stampeding people continued to push and shove. Their feet landed on her over and over, and they ignored her pleas and cries of pain._

_Something snapped, and terrible pain rushed through the woman's body. Even though her scream could be heard, everyone ignored it in their blind panic._

_"I can't feel! I can't... feel!" She cried, tears of pain running down her face as she dragged herself to the wall. Every instinct screamed at her to get away from the stampede as she pulled herself into a sitting position, her legs suddenly useless._

_The rush of people continued as the first waves started to realize that they were trapped, and had to find another way. If anything, the stampede only changed direction._

_The woman looked up, the pain becoming duller and duller, receding into the distance. Something white was on the platform, impossibly bright and glowing even in the darkness. Though her vision was starting to blur and her mind slowed, the woman realized what it was._

_"White... kimono..."_

_Somewhere off, the child was still screaming. "Mother! Mother!"_

_"It... must... be..."_

_She was too weak to cry out even as terrible pain erupted from her back once more, and the darkness rushed to claim her._

* * *

Akemi leapt backwards from the spot, clamping her eyes shut and covering her mouth with one hand. Her face was pale and slightly damp with sweat as the vision burned itself into her memory. Unlike the visions she encountered while sleeping, Akemi could feel every single sensation that occurred, from the cold to the sickening pain.

When she had calmed down enough, Akemi opened her eyes and sighed in relief. Crushed Woman had decided to leave her alone for now. Wiping the sweat off her forehead, Akemi noticed there were two doors here. One was behind her, though she knew it led to the cut-off hallway and was broken anyway. The other was on the left side of the wall, and she hadn't noticed it before.

_I shouldn't just stand around..._

She wasn't quite ready to try the doors on the platform yet, so Akemi decided to try the door on the left wall first.

When she attempted to open the door, she started to sigh in exasperation, but stopped. After she'd tried to open the door, a presence similar to the one that showed Crushed to Wall appeared in front of the door. Akemi was very reluctant, but she couldn't think of anything else to do. The camera buzzing lightly under her fingers, Akemi took a photo of this presence as well.

Unlike last time, the presence didn't leave after Akemi pressed the shutter button, though a photograph slid out as normal.

Examining the picture, Akemi was very relieved. Though the image had changed, there was nothing very grotesque or frightening about it.

The photograph had changed to show a small, plain room that Akemi had not seen yet. A small table stood by the right wall, and a fallen, unbroken vase of flowers lie nearby. A blue diary sat near the corner, and a short hallway led out of the room. The hall was nearly cut out of the picture, but Akemi could see that there was a round window at the end of it.

Just as Akemi had finished examining the picture, rapid footsteps and a little girl's laughter echoed from somewhere above. She whipped her head towards the sound, and found herself staring into the darkness above the platform. Shining her flashlight into the blackness, she saw just what she expected by now; nothing.

Folding and pocketing the photo of the room as she went, Akemi crept to the small staircase. When she reached the foot of the stairs, the giggle occurred again, though it was more distant and there were no footsteps accompanying it.

Remembering what Crushed Woman had seen on the platform, Akemi had been reluctant to try the doors on the platform. Now she was even more reluctant, but that place seemed to be the only place to go.

And with that, Akemi started to climb the stairs.


	8. Dripping Blood

Review reply: "Reys" (Unregisted user) - That was a note that I would be going away for a while. (Thankfully, it wasn't as long as I thought it could be.) If I'm going to be leaving for a while or something of that note, I usually put it in my stories so people will know. The weird little parody-thing was something that keeps this story from being reported, since we're not allowed to have chapters that are purely author's notes.

A/N- Thanks for all reviews!

A/N- No other comments right now...

Chapter Six

"Dripping Blood"

Nothing else happened as Akemi climbed up to the fireplace platform, though she glanced at the break in the safety rail and shivered. What other horrible things had happened in this place?

Now that she was closer, Akemi noticed that one of the doors up here was somewhat smaller than the other. She decided to try the smaller door first, though it took several minutes to open; it creaked and groaned with resistance, as though it had been slammed shut. The door stuck when it was halfway open and Akemi feared that she wouldn't be able to push or pull it out of place. After enough tugging, there was a soft cracking noise and the door slid open.

Naturally, the room beyond was just a very small closet, and completely bare.

Annoyed, Akemi wisely decided to leave the door open as she went to try the other. Thankfully, it slid open with ease and no noise of resistance.

She felt a chill down her spine as she recognized the room immediately; it was the room in the photograph, matching in even the smallest details. Now that she was physically inside of the room, she could see the short hallway much better than she could in the picture. Like she had seen, it ended in a round window, and there were two doors on both the left and right walls. Akemi was tempted to try them, but she remembered the blue diary that should be in the corner, and she was more curious about the diary than anything. Maybe it could tell her what had happened to this place...

As she picked up the book, the unseen child laughed again from somewhere off.

The entry was short and the writing was large and rather sloppy, as though written by a child.

* * *

_Mother and Father dressed us in our special kimonos today. They said that today was going to be a special day for us. I asked if it was like a birthday, and they said that it sort of was._

_But it's not like a birthday... They said that they couldn't come, and they look so sad... Birthdays are happy, and parents are supposed to be at birthdays..._

_At least I get to spend the day with Chiyo and that other girl... I don't know her, but I think her name is Natsuki. That sounds like a pretty name._

_I hope I can make some friends!_

_-Kaori_

* * *

Akemi read over the child's writing several times. Something here was very familiar, and she wracked her brain trying to remember why...

And then it clicked, emerging from the dark corner where all of the ghosts had shoved it aside. When Akemi had first stepped into the mansion, something, someone... had whispered "Chiyo..." Who was she? What did she do?

_Or not do..._

Akemi was pulled from her thoughts by a new presence, this one over the flower vase. Hoping that a ghost wouldn't spring at her, Akemi put the little girl's diary at her feet and stashed the flashlight under one arm.

When the flash from the camera had faded, no photograph slid out, but Akemi had a fleeting image of the sealed door she'd tried to open earlier.

_Maybe there's a connection?_ Akemi wondered, scooping up the blue diary from the ground.

* * *

Akemi stepped out of the room and, instead of going down the stairs of the platform, went to the closet she had managed to open a few moments earlier. She knew that before long, another ghost would appear to attack her, and she would need enough mobility to use the Camera Obscura and protect herself. She couldn't carry the diary around forever...

Kneeling, she tucked the diary away in a relatively clean corner and, on a second thought, emptied her pockets as well and spread their contents on the ground.

After a few moments of decision, Akemi put the photographs of Crushed to Wall and Man in Closet on top of the blue book. To weigh them down, she set two spare Herbal Medicines on top of them.

Feeling relieved that she wouldn't have to worry about being too burdened with supplies, Akemi scuffled backwards a few steps and stood. When she had reached full height, she noticed a new presence near the inside wall of the closet...

When the photograph slid out of the camera, it actually took Akemi a few seconds to notice that something was different about the photograph at all. Unlike the other pictures she had taken, the lighting, angle, and location of the photograph stayed the same. The only thing that made the picture different from reality was the faint image of a man's face, bluish and frozen in fear by whatever force had damned this place.

Deciding that it wasn't important enough to risk carrying around and taking unneeded space, Akemi slid the picture of Man in Closet under the Herbal Medicines.

* * *

As Akemi had predicted, the door on the left wall of the Fireplace room had unsealed. Past this door lay a staircase, much larger and more stable than the one in the Fireplace room. Looking at it, however, Akemi couldn't help but feel claustrophobic. The bare, brown walls seemed to narrow, closing like a fist as her gaze traveled up the stairs.

Akemi stared to climb the staircase, the claustrophobia worsening with each step. Fearing that she might flee, Akemi distracted herself by staring intently at her feet and counting the number of steps she took.

_10...11...12..._

She'd gotten halfway up the staircase when she happened to glance up. A ghost stood at the top of the stairs, watching her with dark eyes. It had the form of an aged man, standing tall and proud in a ceremonial outfit. Though he was weaponless and had no frightening injuries or deformities like the other spirits, he gave off such a wave of power that it made Akemi freeze in her steps.

He quietly faded into nothingness, and despite what her instincts said, Akemi bolted up the stairs. The claustrophobic effect followed her, growing more real with each second. The staircase itself seemed to lengthen, so determined to crush her that it bent the laws of physics...

When she reached the top of the stairs, Akemi half-expected to hear the walls close behind her, or feel a wooden splinter in her foot... Yet when she turned to face the staircase, the illusion was... gone. The only thing frightening about that place was the darkness that crouched at the bottom of it, and for a moment, Akemi wondered, rather hysterically, if it was all a prank caused by the lurking blackness.

Tearing her gaze from the structure, Akemi turned to her right. There were two doors on the wall, and the robed spirit stood in front of the left one, though he was much less menacing with his back turned.

_"She is not yet ready... we must perform a Crushing Ritual..."_ He said, perhaps to himself, as he walked right through the door.

* * *

"...Ritual?" Akemi wondered aloud, moving towards the door.

She'd only gotten halfway there when she felt powerful eyes on her.

She'd only just recognized the sensation and had stopped in mid-step when a terrible chill settled in the room and the air seemed to thicken. Turning, Akemi let out a scream as she recognized what stood mere feet away.

Just before Crushed Woman had died, she'd seen a white glow on the Fireplace platform. And right before Akemi, it stood, but seen through the eyes of a healthy person, it had a form. It was not a glow or light at all, but the spirit of a young woman, perhaps only a year or two older than Akemi. Dressed in a white kimono... _Burial clothes,_ Akemi thought... with a pale blue obi, it stared past Akemi and at the left door instead, though with its long, dark hair in the way, it was hard to tell exactly what she was looking at.

And like the spirit of the old man, she gave off a terrible aura, though hers was a thousand times worse.

Akemi backed away a few steps, causing the floor to creak. Akemi froze in place as the spirit slowly, ever so slowly, turned to look at her.

They made something like eye contact, and the ghost stepped forward.

Reflexively, Akemi took a matching step back, and stumbled backwards as the ghost continued to advance, the coldness growing in intensity and the air thickening even more...

As the ghost came towards her, water dripped off of it with each step and fell to the floor like rain, though the liquid soon disappeared.

Suddenly, it stopped, less than a foot away from Akemi. They stared at each other, the sound of the dripping water becoming the only noise in the room. Akemi even dared to think that it was going to leave, or just stay there and...

Akemi had just enough time to notice the dripping water turn to blood, right before the ghost lashed out at her face.


	9. Origins

Chapter Seven

"Origins"

The ghost's pale hand passed mere inches from Akemi's face. Despite her fear, Akemi displayed another strange thing of the human mind by noticing that though the hand didn't stir the air like any solid object, it still radiated that cold, heavy effect that plagued the entire room.

Suddenly aware that she had a second chance for the moment, Akemi turned and ran a few short feet behind her, towards the door that the male ghost had gone through a few moments earlier. As she pulled and pushed at the door, there was nothing but a quiet clicking noise, and no movement whatsoever. Akemi looked down and... as she suspected... the door was locked.

"No, no... come on..." She muttered to herself, giving the old lock a few tugs. As she yanked and pulled, Akemi noted the etching on the old metal; a crane.

_"The Great Walk..."_ A faint, female voice whispered.

In response, Akemi turned and pressed her back to the wall, ignoring the lock digging into the flesh of her back as a result. The ghost was moving slowly, but it would reach her eventually...

"There's two doors here..." Akemi remembered, half-thinking, half-whispering.

She started to edge towards her left, throwing glances back-and-forth between the ghost and the door. When she was within six inches of her goal, Akemi's fear won out and she bolted, throwing open the door and running blindly. Her sudden movements caused the Camera Obscura to thump against her chest, oh-so-helpfully reminding her of its presence.

Feeling a mixture of relief and stupidity, Akemi turned towards the ghost and raised the camera. Of course, she'd left the door open, though it didn't make much difference; the wraith would come through to reach her no matter what.

As the spirit reached the doorframe, Akemi thought... perhaps half-hysterically... that the ghost's slow movements weren't of brutes or stupid, hideous monsters; the ghost was _stalking_, like a cat. Maybe it was even playing with her!

A half-formed pessimistic thought started to creep into Akemi's mind as she pressed the shutter button, and it grew stronger when the ghost didn't disappear, or show any kind of pain. However, it did pause in its movements.

The spirit raised its head ever so slightly, lowered it again in a soft sigh, and then disappeared, leaving no sign of its presence other than a chill in the air.

Of course, Akemi didn't trust this change of heart one tiny bit, and stood there, camera raised, for at least a minute. It was only then that she trusted her senses and lowered the camera, though she didn't let it go.

Instead, she looked down at it, holding it with her left hand and running her fingers over the rust with her right.

_Where did you come from?_ She wondered, turning it over to look at the lens. As she looked into the glass, Akemi felt a strange, almost painful prickling in her spine...

* * *

_A whirlwind of voices, all but a few words and sentences losing themselves to the winds of thought._

_"Mayu!" __**"I don't want to see anymore."**__ "If it was to come to this..." "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" "It's raining again."_

_Laughter, and..._

_It all became clear. At least, somewhat._

_Though everything seemed to be in shades of gray and her sight occasionally flickered like an old movie, Akemi could make out the scenery; a river flowing through a lush forest. With a considerable jolt, Akemi recognized this location as the same place that she and Noriko had found the Camera Obscura, though this particular spot was further upstream._

_Two figures stood on the right side of the river, and though Akemi could tell that they were female, they were very blurred and faceless. Akemi had the fleeting thought that someone... or something... was doing this on purpose._

_"This has caused so much pain." One of them said quietly, staring at something in her hands. The voices of the figures weren't as blurred as their faces, and Akemi could tell that this particular figure was a grown woman, or at least nearly._

_The other figure, shorter and possibly younger, nodded in agreement._

_A quiet, reflective moment passed._

_And then, without warning and a cry of anger, the woman threw something as hard as she could. As the object passed through a ray of sunlight, time seemed to slow, and Akemi recognized it instantly; it was the camera!_

_With a loud clunk, the rusty machine hit a rock before splashing into the murky water. As it sank, Akemi felt something in the vision... change. Thoughts blurred, something was pulling her in with dark tentacles laced in pain... For a moment, Akemi wanted to look away, to see the two people again, but the thought seemed so __**silly**__ now…_

_Unknown to the two (reallythree) and their good intentions, something inside of the machine (it, us) was whirring, __**stirring...**_

* * *

Akemi jerked free of the vision, nearly dropping the camera and, momentarily forgetting that it was tied around her neck, fumbled to catch it again, succeeding only by the tips of her fingers.

After securing the camera, Akemi stared down at the rusty machine in her hands, again feeling that dark... possession... start to creep up on her. But this time, Akemi didn't let it take over, or let it settle in the back of her mind, only to take root and spread throughout her brain like a poison. Instead, she held it back, mentally staring at the sensation and physically staring at the camera. For the first time, Akemi felt unease and suspicion that was... secure. The last times she'd felt it, the darkness soothed her suspicions, without the tiniest signs of struggle from her...

As though it were a living thing, the dark feeling sensed her suspicions and withdrew to wherever it came from.

Akemi even had the fleeting urge to take the camera and throw it hard against the wall, and her hands twitched with the want, but she couldn't do that now... This was her only weapon, and her only protection against these... **things.**

But was this really _her _thoughts, or just the manipulations of camera?

As this question came to mind, something clicked, then snapped, and it all went quiet.


	10. Natsuki

Thanks to my idiotic document naming methods, I accidentally deleted this chapter! :D

And the computer that had a copy of it no longer exists.

Until I re-write this chapter, please enjoy the short version of what happened here:

Natsuki was the daughter of the head priest, used for a ritual involving herself, Kaori, and Chiyo. Chiyo and Natsuki both died mysteriously.

After being defeated by Akemi, Natsuki dropped a key with a crane on it.


	11. Justification

A/N- Thanks for reviews, guys! )

Chapter Nine

"Justification"

_A crane..._

It didn't take long for Akemi to put two and two together. The key that Natsuki had dropped belonged to the locked room just down the hall. It seemed an eternity ago, really...

The walk back to the locked room was blissfully uneventful. At one point, a strange breeze graced the hallway, stirring papers and dust. Akemi had stood ready for almost a full minute, but when nothing else happened, she moved on.

The crane lock was just as well-maintained as the door that it guarded, giving as easily as though it had been crafted and oiled that very day. The room itself was actually fairly unimpressive. It was just a small, cramped study, a writing desk just barely squeezing in the room and surrounded by shelves of books and scrolls. A rusty lamp lay not far away, broken in several places.

The desk itself was probably quite clean at one point. Now, an old writing brush lie snapped in half, and a bottle of ink had been spilled long ago, staining the wood. In the center of the desk, a worn, old brown book sat on top of a ragged square of paper.

Curiosity prodded the teenager, and she slipped the old parchment out from under the book. The handwriting was quite clean, and Akemi started to wonder if anyone around here dare let themselves write a bit sloppily.

* * *

_There is some misunderstanding about the Ripping Ritual and its namesake._

_The "ripping" that the ritual is so named for is not of the body, but of the mind. The child that survives is forever __torn__ from the rest of society and the hopes of a normal life. This makes their eventual passing from this world all the more easier, both for the Maiden or Man in question and ourselves._

_It's unfortunate that two of the three children must die in the Ripping Ritual, but sacrifice is what keeps the unseen darkness at bay._

* * *

The note didn't make sense at first, but as Akemi reread the old characters a few times, things began to link together.

Some of Natsuki's days... were they her last?... had been spent in terror and panic, brought about by being chosen for this ritual... and Kaori, a different girl entirely, had written about having to spend the day with two other children around her age.

Natsuki, Chiyo, and Kaori... Two had died, one had lived... But who?

And where was Noriko? What did any of this have to do with her?

As she pondered, a telltale prickle started to settle on the back of Akemi's neck. She first thought it meant she was being watched, but as the prickle became heavier and clearer, she realized it was something strange and different.

"Leave this place."

Suddenly and without sound, everything was changed.

The desk in front of her was suddenly pristine, shining in the flickering light of a nearby lantern. The writing brush, once broken and dusty, was suddenly one of the finest available, as was the small bottle of dark ink it lie next to.

And the study was suddenly a lot more crowded. Looking down, Akemi saw two bobbing seas of black, and hurried backwards, pressing herself against some bookcase. For a few split seconds, she thought that some new ghost had come to try and tear her limb from limb... but as soft, quiet whispers touched her ears, she realized that it was nothing but two little girls, both dressed in little kimonos.

"Leave this place." Repeated the stern, aging voice. Turning at the same time and with the same speed as the young girls, Akemi saw the voice's source, and felt a shock of familiarity. It was the icy, powerful ghost she'd seen at the top of the staircase. Even in life, he held that same strong aura, and wore the robes of a priest. The robes weren't fancy or ornamental as, say, the garb of a wealthy man or a king; the robes of a religious man were meant to show humility and willingness to decline material, mortal wealth. Yet, these robes in particular were a tad more decorated than most. A sign of status or rank, perhaps?

Akemi watched as the elder priest's gaze shifted, and she followed his line of sight. His eyes had fallen on the book that the girls had gotten their small hands on, and the teenager turned just in time to see a flicker of surprise in the man's eyes before it was suppressed.

Akemi turned back to the girls. They had long turned their own heads to see the priest, and though she didn't have a perfect view, Akemi could note a few facial features of the girls. They had large, beautiful eyes... though they were full of pleading at the moment... long eyelashes, and small, cute mouths currently coiled into an expression of fear. Given time, they would have grown up to be rather pretty.

But what struck Akemi more than the unborn beauty of the girls was how similar they were. Without a doubt, the two were closely related, probably sisters.

"Kaori and Chiyo, is it?" The voice, both in its harshness and the sound of familiar names, jerked Akemi out of her thoughts.

The sisters shifted uncomfortably, and nodded.

"Yes, sir." Answered the taller girl on Akemi's left, voice shivering slightly with nervousness.

"Put the book back where you found it, and leave. I'll be having a word with your father, later." The priest said coldly, stepping aside to allow the girls to leave.

Trembling slightly, the younger sister set the book in the center of the desk and straightened it. The older sister took her sister's hand and, after exchanging wide-eyed glances, scurried out of the room. As the sisters left the room, Akemi's vision of the past started to fade, and by the time the elder priest had set foot in the room, everything had returned to its dark, messy state.

* * *

Akemi continued to press against the bookcase for a few more seconds afterward, and only after she felt sure the silence had returned in full, allowed herself to relax. Her faith in the silence was soon destroyed, however, as voices rang clearly just outside of the room.

"With all due respect, I'm beginning to doubt this decision, Master. Siblings are so rarely used, and perhaps there is a _reason_ for that. Even if it is nothing but an old superstition, young Hideaki and young Sachiko are perfectly suited for the ritual... They were chosen at _birth._" The voice, younger and with far less authority behind it, added as an afterthought.

"Kaori and Chiyo are far too dangerous. It is inquisitive, nosy minds like theirs that will damn the entire family once again. Minds that must be silenced or humbled. Minds a little like yours, in fact..." The elder priest responded, a subtle threat stirring in his choice of words.

There was a silence before the younger man spoke again. "I understand, Master."

"As I thought. Now go." The elder commanded.

Afterwards, there was a profound silence, and Akemi decided that the voices from the past had ceased, at least for the moment. As she closed her eyes for a moment, processing what she had just heard, things started to make sense...

"Leave this place."

The teen's eyes snapped open, and a steady heartbeat came into being, throbbing in her mind and the Camera Obscura.

"Damned..." The voice hissed from somewhere to Akemi's right, and she turned.

The priest's ghost hovered there, smoky non-body divided abruptly in half by the bookcase. His gaze was full of cold hate and malice, not dulled in the slightest by his death. That strange wave of power and hate that flowed from him was incredibly overwhelming in this small space, and every part of the teenager's mind screamed the same message; _out!_

Akemi whipped around and slammed the door open, forgetting how well-maintained the mechanics of the thing were. Just as she set foot out of the cramped space, the heartbeat in her brain doubled in strength, and she let out a small groan.

She turned just in time to see the elder priest's image fade, only to reappear in the space between the open door she'd just come through, and the one that lead to the hallway. Her chest starting to ache from the buzz of the camera, Akemi realized the only way to go was down.

She moved down the stairs in a blur, not letting her eyes close or the claustrophobic illusion threaten her again. With a grunt, she half-slammed into the door before opening it in a rush, turning around and closing it with just as much speed and desperation.

And, like a candle going out, the heartbeat and presence was gone.

Akemi stood there in disbelief for a moment, leaning against the door and straining every sense for the slightest sign of a spirit. When nothing came, she took a few wary steps away from the door, which suddenly seemed dangerous and looming in the dark. What strange boundaries did these spirits hold?

A small, soft ripple grazed Akemi's new sixth sense, and she blinked in confusion.

Almost patiently, the ripple came once more, and the teenager glanced around. The strange sensation came a third time, and Akemi let her gaze travel up the flimsy stairs of the fireplace room and onto the platform, finally resting on the two doors that awaited her there.


	12. Hear what I hear

Chapter Ten

"Hear what I hear"

The fireplace room and places beyond were unchanged. Even the haunting yet gleeful laughter of a child still lingered in this place, echoing throughout the cool air as Akemi entered the shattered-vase room... The room where Akemi had discovered the diary entry of a curious, bright little girl from decades upon decades ago. A girl named Kaori.

Akemi let her eyes travel over the room once again. As she had seen before, there was a very short hall in this room... no longer than five feet, at most. This nearly-useless hall ended in a round window, and there were two doors here as well. One to the left and the other to the right.

As she approached, a stray beam from Akemi's flashlight showed her the way before she could even begin to decide what door to pass through. There was a large, heavy lock on the left door, this one etched with a flowing river.

The child's laughter echoed through the house once more as Akemi turned to look at the door to the right, and she couldn't hold in the small shiver as she placed her hands on the ancient, well-worn wood.

The door was reluctant to give, though Akemi managed to ease the door open after a few tries.

_Typical._

Akemi's wandering flashlight revealed only more hallway beyond.

The first hall in front of her feet cut off abruptly about ten feet away, ending in a door that seemed oddly menacing in the dark. That alone would have been enough, but about five feet down this hall, another path branched off to the right.

And on every wall that Akemi could see, there was at least one door, which could in turn lead to even _more_ hallway, and soon, the mansion would be a dark, hellish maze.

As Akemi stepped forward, leaving the door open behind her, she felt her foot nudge something. Shining her flashlight in the dark, she saw that it was nothing special... a round, white pebble. The small rock was completely harmless, yet it seemed so oddly out of place...

And then the air was heavy and cold.

Akemi looked up immediately. The female ghost, Kaori, was not in sight. At least, not yet.

Gripping the Camera Obscura, the teenager crept forward, all senses alert. As the branching hall to the right came closer, she stopped and, as slow and silently as possible, crouched. Even the camera was strangely silent; the only pulse that Akemi felt was her own, growing steadily faster and harder as she peered around the corner...

Akemi's heart leapt as she recognized the wraith, but something felt... different. It was definitely the same ghost; her kimino was the unearthly white of the dead, her face almost impossible to see in shadow, and that water eternally dripping onto the old floor. Yet, she was... subdued. The cold, steel hatred that Kaori normally gave off seemed to be gone, or at least, directed towards something else.

With a sigh, the spirit raised its right arm and strangely, carefully caressed the wood of the door in front of her. As her pale hand traveled down the door, her form began to fade. By the time the spirit's hand was falling back towards her body, she was nothing but the faintest imprint in the air. And a second later, she was gone.

Still shivering in the cold air, Akemi carefully pulled herself to her feet. She even dared to let herself sigh in relief, blisfully unaware that...

**"Hear what I hear."**

The whisper, so faint and tired, was just a few inches from Akemi's ear.

A stab of fear, a hand of cold lead on her shoulder, and then whiteness.

* * *

_ The room, reserved for Children of the Lake such as herself, was rather luxurious. The bed was large, with expensive, soft pillows and sheets that, if seen in a normal house, would earn either envy or scorn for being so gluttonous. There were bookcases and chests of drawers, as well, and despite all of the furniture, the room had plenty of space to move around in and be comfortable. _

_ But this room, for all of its apparent wealth, was a coffin. It offered its final, lethal comforts only to the dead. That was what the Children were, once they entered the room; dead, memorialized in the proper places, and never again seen in the flesh by friends or close family._

_ Like so many Maidens of the Lake before her, Kaori had taken only one posession from the mansion with her; her diary, and it was one of the few things that the priests allowed to be taken. At least twice a day, she wrote on its well-worn pages, knowing that these writings would be some of her last._

_ She'd been deep in her thoughts, writing by lamplight, when the nightmarish sounds began._

_ The Lake and its basin were a wasteland, lacking in even trees, let alone birds. Given the pure, unbroken silence, the slightest noise amplified and echoed throughout the entire area. The Maiden of the Lake had spent nearly a year in the silence, and so even the slightest noise caught her attention; the shifting of a stone, a breeze, and now, footsteps._

_ She paused, lifting her head slightly at the noise. The footsteps were many, and erratic, kicking aside pebbles and the gray dirt of the Lake. The sound was soon joined another, one that made Kaori's heart start to pound; muffeled, female shouts and sobs. A door closed._

_ Someone fell, hitting the ground with a grunt. Kaori gasped and flinched as the muffled protests were freed, becoming full-out screams and sobs of terror. Nearly spilling her pot of ink in the process, she leapt away from her desk as though it were on fire, and strained towards the room's one round window. It was far out of reach, and intentionally so._

_ The Maiden started to panic, haphazardly throwing her diary and pen onto her bed, remembering the ink pot only at the last second and half-setting, half-throwing it onto the ground, still open. The screams only continued, and Kaori was suddenly aware of her own heart slamming against her ribs and her paniced breathing._

_ Clambering onto the desk, she nearly slipped when the sound of smacking flesh resounded through the air, like miniature thunder. The woman's harsh screams crumpeled, becoming broken sobs and whispered pleas for mercy. Straining her neck, Kaori could only see a cluster of heads, all of them belonging to the priests._

_ A grunt, a thud, and the woman only continued to sob and protest. A muttered order... "Hold her?"... and several priests ducked down. Kaori saw movement in the corner of her eye, and turned her gaze to see the head priest approaching. The lesser priests began to lower their heads in prayer._

_ "No, no, please... not me, not me... Oh God, please no, find your..."_

_ The head priest started to raise... something..._

_ "No, no, no, NO! PLEASE, GOD, SOMEBODY-"_

_**Snap. Crunch.**_

_ Kaori had to force her mouth closed with her one free hand, lest somebody hear her scream alongside the woman. The Maiden's stomach churned, and she looked up in time to see the head priest raise the thing again, though some dark, dark fluid dribbeled from the flat end._

_**Snap.**_

_ With another muffeled scream, Kaori forced herself to look away as a second bone was shattered. Desperate and sick, the Maiden half-fell off the desk, knocking over the ink pot on the floor in the process. She stumbled onto the ground, landing hands and knees on the growing puddle of ink and shuddering, panting, trying not to-_

_**Snap.**_

___The screams started to falter, dying away to broken sobs. Kaori retched, and something acidic trickled past her lips. She was sorry, so sorry, and begged that whoever the woman was wouldn't_

_**Snap. A last, hoarse scream, which gave way to whimpers and groans.**_

___hate her._


	13. Mother of a Maiden

Chapter Eleven

"Mother of a Maiden"

When Akemi came back from the vision, she was already on the ground, dry-heaving as the nausea of both herself and Kaori came in full force.

She'd never felt so sickened before in her entire life, but the teenager had to force herself to recover quickly. The ghost of Kaori seemed satisfied for the moment, but an untold number of other spirits roamed this place. To be exposed, if only for a moment, was a dangerous thing indeed.

When she felt steady enough to move on, the Akemi carefully climbed back to her feet, using the old wall for support. Looking around, she noted that the door Kaori had stood in front of moments before now stood eerily open, and weak candlelight flickered from within.

Moving slowly and carefully, Akemi chose to investigate.

It was a bedroom, though a half-open door to the left showed that whoever lived here also had a dining room or kitchen, at least. As Akemi's senses probed the room, she caught on to a presence hovering over the bed. Of course, she took a photograph of it.

The picture showed a grieving man sitting on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands. Feeling a pang of sympathy, the teenager laid the photograph on one of the bed's pillows and let it be.

"I didn't want this to be."

Akemi took in a short gasp, not only because she was startled, but also because the voice belonged to Kaori. Thankfully, it lacked the cold hatred of the young woman's spirit, so what Akemi was hearing must have been said in the distant past... or was it something else?

"I never wanted to drag someone into the darkness with me..." The voice sighed. "Forgive me..."

Akemi waited for Kaori's disembodied voice to go on, but it seemed to be finished for the moment. As there wasn't anything else of interest in the room, the teenager decided to leave and move on.

Returning to the hallway, Akemi noticed that a few more doors lie mysteriously open. Sensing that no malicious presences lurked in the blackness, she entered the nearest room. Like the others, it was a bedroom, and there was even a door in the same place. It seemed that these rooms were all uniform... perhaps this part of the mansion was some kind of quarters?

A torn scrap of paper lie on this room's bed.

* * *

_It seems that Hisashi has chosen to marry young Sachiko. We must pray for the poor man's soul... if only he knew that the priests have had_

(The paper cut off suddenly, but not because of the tear, which lie above the writing. A note was scribbled on the back of the scrap.)

_My youngest son found this letter and brought it to me. I honestly tried not to read it, but your name stuck out to me, and... what I read disturbed me, for obvious reasons._

_I've torn the relevant piece of the rest of the page. It seems that the letter goes on and finishes on a separate page, which I do not have._

_I won't put my name here in case the priests find this, but I will be praying for you and your beloved._

* * *

The note did not make a lot of sense, but as it took up very little space, Akemi decided to fold it up and pocket it for future reference before moving on to the next room.

This room didn't hold anything interesting, save for a presence hovering above the bed's pillow. The photograph that Akemi took revealed the imprint of a dying old man, his face twisted in pain. As she'd done with the picture of the mourning man, Hideyaki, the teenager left the photograph on the pillow.

_I hope that this is somehow ending their pain._

The fourth room was different than the others. A small passageway in the main bedroom led to a smaller room off to the side, its door left open some time ago. The smaller bedroom was meant for children, apparently; the butterfly-theme decorations had been grayed with age and dust, and there were several well-dressed dolls lying about.

As Akemi took a few steps into the room to take a closer look at the children's room, something flicked in the corner of her eye, and the door slammed shut behind her.

_Bmp-bmp. Bmp-bmp. Bmp-bmp._

The girl's common sense came back to her in a rush, and she ran to the door. She gave it a strong tug, but the door didn't move in the slightest. A small, panicked part of her whispered that the door wasn't simply jammed, but was being _held_ shut instead.

_"Why?"_

Akemi froze, casting about with her sixth sense and finding the source of the whisper a little sooner than she would like. Slowly and gently putting her hands on the Camera Obscura, she turned.

It was a hanged woman, nearly pitch-black in color. Her body swayed slightly, suspended above the room's center.

Almost in response to Akemi's attention, the woman fell into a crumpled heap and lie still.

_Bmp-bmp. Bmp-bmp. Bmp-bmp._

The wraith's head suddenly jerked upwards, her dark hair parting to show some of her face. Her eyes, once hazel, were glazed with the sleep of death.

_"Why my girls?"_

"I don't know! I've nothing to do with this!" Akemi found herself responding, raising the camera to eye level.

The hanged woman ignored Akemi's words, instead floating upwards so that her limbs gradually unfolded themselves. She came to what might have been a standing position if she were still alive, though as a spirit, her legs just dangled uselessly.

The ghost started to approach, and the teenager was certain now that she meant harm.

The spirit's approach was slow, the noose hanging limply from her neck. When she came within feet of Akemi, the wraith raised and stretched her arms, almost as though she wanted to hug the teenaged girl in a loving embrace.

The camera was buzzing nearly to the point of numbness, and when Akemi pressed the shutter button, she knew the blast was a powerful one. The hanged woman recoiled with a sudden, sharp speed. An unintelligible shriek tore through the room, and as the ghost threw her head back, Akemi caught a glimpse of the woman's face. The glazed, dead look in her eyes was gone, and a mixture of physical and emotional pain lie there instead.

But the display was all-too-brief, and the spirit was ready to kill again in a matter of seconds.

As it had been previously, the ghost approached her target slowly. However, she didn't raise her arms, instead pausing almost in contemplation of her target.

The spirit's attack was faster than a snake's strike, registering in Akemi's eyes as little more than a gray-black blur. In an instant, the spirit had the girl in her icy arms, the cold seeming to piece her target's flesh to the bone. Out of reflex, Akemi pressed the shutter button.

The woman didn't shriek as she had, but the bright flash did cause the spirit to back away a few feet.

Shivering and panting, Akemi moved away from where she had been standing, taking a new position further away and slightly to the left of the ghost. The wraith turned and resumed its slow attack without a second thought.

Like her first attack, the woman reached out towards the girl with her cold, dead arms. Akemi snapped a picture as soon as the camera began to buzz, and again, the woman shrank away with a howl.

_"Please! Not my daughters! Anyone but my children!"_

The scream had been clear and understandable this time, but like before, the ghost was ready to kill again in just a few seconds.

The hanged woman came for Akemi a third time, and the teenager began to wonder just how much intelligence these trapped souls still held from the former lives. It was clear that some, such as Kaori, were just as smart as the living. Yet the majority of the other spirits seemed to be stuck in the same old patterns, only recognizing that Akemi was alive, and therefore something to be targeted and attacked.

As Akemi predicted, the woman stopped in her tracks to prepare for her strike. The girl was prepared this time, however, and dove out of the way just as the ghost's hands tore through the air, lightly touching the clothes on the teen's back.

Turning around just as fast as the wraith had attacked, Akemi saw that the ghost seemed to be... stuck, or frozen. Her dark arms were crossed over chest, embracing the empty air where her target had stood just a second before.

But this state wouldn't last very long. Even at that second, the teen could see the spirit's arms and hands starting to pull away from its body. Suddenly aware that the Camera Obscura was buzzing and throbbing under her fingers, Akemi saw the opportunity and pressed the shutter button.

The reaction was instant. The hanged woman recoiled and screamed for a final time, and started to shrink into the floor. Her shriek of pain started to fade, not only because the woman herself was starting to disappear into the blackness, but also because the howl had started to fall apart into small, grieving sobs.

The telltale throbbing of a malicious spirit started to fade, and Akemi allowed the camera to fall back to its usual spot on her chest as she reached for an herbal medicine. The teenager closed her eyes as the ancient cure sent warmth through her body, which still tingled with cold from the hanged woman's arms.

When she opened her eyes, the girl saw what the spirit had left behind. On the spot where she'd shrunk into the floor, two small objects glittered slightly in the light. Kneeling, Akemi shone her flashlight on the items.

They were two butterfly pendants, maybe meant to go on a necklace or something similar. They were both identical, save for their color; one was a pure, glittering white and the other was a bright green. As Akemi picked the cold stones up, a whisper emanated from them.

_"Chiyo... oh, my little one, Chiyo... and Kaori... oh, my Kaori..."_

The voice, broken by sobs and belonging to the woman, soon faded into the darkness.

Akemi closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the carved stones start to warm in her hand. Just because of one ritual, four people ended up dying here. And because the nature of the rituals was so refined and known among the people that lived in this mansion, these sacrifices had gone on for many years. Centuries, even.

Returning the butterfly pendants to their young owners by setting them on their beds, Akemi could only wonder just how many people had suffered and died in this place.


	14. A Puzzle

"A Puzzle"

The room of the hanged woman had been the last open one nearby. All of the other doors in the branching hallway were sealed shut, so Akemi had left to try the door at the end of the initial hallway. It opened without any problems, but she felt uneasy going on with her herbal medicine running low, so she went off to the fireplace platform to visit the closet where she'd stored some earlier.

There was a presence on the platform, specifically where part of the safety railing had broken off. After taking plenty of herbal medicine... the closet door, which had been near-impossible to open, was thankfully still open... Akemi took a picture of the presence. It simply revealed the upper body of a woman, her neck even more twisted and broken than the hanged woman's. Feeling very unnerved by the picture of the woman, she put in the closet and was glad to leave it there.

Returning to the hall, Akemi opened the door once more, and allowed herself to within.

It was a staircase, though it only went a few feet. Looking around further, she saw that these stairs went into a small platform, which in turn lead to another staircase that went in the opposite direction.

All in all, the two-part staircase was actually rather pretty, in a place such as this. Moonlight poured in generously from a window, and dust particles swirled in the light. On the small platform itself was a small stand with an unlit lantern.

Akemi took the stairs down, noting with great relief that no horrible illusion of crushing walls came to her this time.

At the bottom of the two-part staircase were two doors, one directly in front of her and one on the right wall. Choosing randomly, the girl decided to try the right door.

It was a fireplace room, though very well-maintained and clearly meant for someone other than the normal people that worked and lived in the Tsukino mansion. There was only one chest of drawers in this room, and the space was instead home to more bookshelves than anything. Akemi noted that the bookshelves had wisely been put far away from the fireplace.

Since there was nothing interesting here, Akemi shut the door and turned to the other door instead.

Locked. The padlock here wasn't as heavy as the one upstairs, but it was still impossible for mere human hands to yank off or destroy. However, there was something unique about this lock, something that Akemi had to squint to see.

While all of the other locks in this place had a picture to identify them with, this one had a small note finely etched onto it instead.

"_ONLY THE ANCIENT DAMNED CAN FIND THIS PLACE."_

The teenager blinked and read the note again. It was obviously a riddle or some sort of puzzle, but... this mansion was so huge, it could be referring to just about anywhere!'

"Useless." Akemi muttered, turning away from the locked door to the other fireplace room. There was probably another path somewhere inside of there.

* * *

Her guess had been wrong. Though she looked in every corner and even behind each bookcase, there were no doors, no alternate paths offered to her.

While checking behind one of the emptier bookcases, a prickle graced Akemi's senses, and she turned to find a presence hovering nearby over one of the shelves. She raised the Camera Obscura, but the presence disappeared as soon as the machine passed chin-level.

Thinking that it was just a trick of her mind, the girl lowered the camera again, and the presence reappeared.

Out of curiosity, Akemi took the camera up again, and the presence disappeared, only to reapper when the camera was back on her chest.

After a moment, she realized that the presence was just a pointing hand meant to guide her.

Creeping over, the teenager examined the book that the presence was hovering over. The characters were definitely faded with age, but she could read the title.

On Evil

The book was very old, and evil things are often damned... It didn't take very long for it to click in Akemi's mind.

Eagerly, she plucked the book from the shelf and skimmed through it. It was nothing more than some philosphy on evil throughout the world, but the real prize of the book soon came to light as something fell to the wooden floor.

Stuffing the book back in its place, Akemi snatched up the key in her fingertips and hurried out of the room and to the other door. Suddenly fearing she might break the key, the teenager carefully slid the key into the slot and turned.

Nothing happened.

Frowning, Akemi tried the key several times.

"It's... a puzzle." She muttered as the realization came to her. Feeling frustrated, Akemi dropped the false key into a dark corner and, scowling, returned to the fireplace room.

* * *

A considerably long time later, the teenager still hadn't fond the right key. She'd tried a dozen different books with relevant titles, and none held the correct key in their pages. At this point, she was very frustrated and tired, even wasting a herbal medicine in the hopes that it would somehow provide a burst of energy or inspiration.

Akemi spent a few moments pacing around the room, the shine of the flashlight irregular thanks to her crossed arms. She was truly stuck, and it didn't seem that any presences would be coming to help her this time.

She spent a moment to stop and close her eyes, racking her brain for the slightest clue. She'd memorized the note on the padlock by now, having gone to read and re-read the thing a hundred times.

When nothing came, the girl growled and opened her eyes, idly allowing her eyes to skim over the titles both recent and faded with age.

Suddenly, she stopped, her mind latching onto one book in particular. It was thick, bound in a white cover free of dust at the moment.

More importantly, it had no title.

There was no particular reason that Akemi suddenly felt drawn to the book, only a half-formed thought about the first, ancient civilizations having no forms of writing. An odd thought, considering that books themselves were things of writing.

The book was incredibly heavy, and Akemi grunted with the effort of pulling it down and setting it on the ground to skim.

The cover held an incredibly old and faded title, though the spine did not. The characters on the cover were some of the most faded that Akemi had seen her entire life. She could just barely make out two dates, both of them decades upon decades ago.

She doubted wether she'd read right at first, but these thoughts soon vanished as the girl started to skim through the tome. Some of the first dozen or so pages had nearly crumbled to dust at this point, and were barely more legible than the tome's cover.

As Akemi read on, the pages became more and more stable, and the writing itself grew clearer. The book was nothing more than a massive collection of names and dates. Written next to the names were some sort of title... Pausing to look more closely, the teen shivered slightly as she realized this record was one of sacrifices that had taken place hundreds of years ago, along with their dates of birth and death, and the names of their parents.

Made rather uneasy by this realization, she flipped through the pages a little faster.

The key was tucked away towards the very end of the records. Like the other keys, all of which had been imposters so far, the brass was completely smooth and featureless. Trying not to let her hopes rise too far, Akemi left the record book open on the ground and hurried over to the puzzle-door.

Seconds later, she didn't believe her senses at first, as a quiet little click resounded in her fingertips and her ears. The padlock, with its cryptic note, slid off of the door and into her hand, the metal growing warm on her skin.

Absently chucking the padlock into a dark corner, Akemi realized her eyes were wide with wonder as she placed her hands on the door and slid it open.


	15. Sachiko

A/N- A warning to the squeamish: Something a bit disturbing lies ahead.

Chapter Thirteen

"Sachiko"

The room beyond was in total darkness, leaving Akemi to shine her flashlight about in the blackness. After a few moments of building a mental image of the room, and her eyes pushing their limits, she realized it was a massive shrine-room, with distant statues of the Buddha adorning the walls.

The shrine directly in front of her held something, but whatever it was, it was sealed away from sight behind sliding wood panels. Though the shrine had been sealed off by holy rope, a section of it had fallen, and Akemi stepped through this part.

There was an indentation under the sealed window, and Akemi had to resist laughing when she realized it was in the shape of the lock she'd mindlessly thrown away.

A few minutes later, she came back to shrine with the lock in hand. Thankfully, the lock was quite sturdy, and was totally unharmed by the drop. She pressed it into the identation where it set in with a soft click.

The wooden panels all slid open automatically, and with such silent smoothness that it seemed they'd only been installed yesterday. As the shrine's contents came into the shine of her flashlight, whispers started to fill the room, both male and female, all impossible decipher. After a few seconds, Akemi realized how similar they were to the storm of whispers she'd heard when the Camera Obscura had showed her that strange vision, and shuddered.

What lie inside the shrine was a large white rock, shaped somewhat like a teardrop. The pearly surface was still as rough as any natural rock, though years and years of use had smoothed it in a few places. As Akemi's eyes traveled down the rock's shape, she realized that the bottom third of the stone was a little darker than the rest. After a moment, she realized it was some kind of stain, and decided not to think about it anymore.

A piece of paper lie in front of the stone, and she had to lean in closer to the rock to read it.

_THE HOLY STONE._

Akemi looked back at the stain on the rock. Holy, but why? And for what purpose?

Her heart sped up slightly as her ears noted the sudden silence. The whispers had suddenly gone.

_Sschlip._

Akemi froze, the disturbing sound gracing her senses so softly in the dark.

_Sssschlip._

She waved her flashlight all throughout the room, seeing nothing the first time around. Her sixth sense started to prickle, and her eyes followed naturally.

Hovering before the distant Buddha statue was little more than a greenish haze, but the more Akemi looked at it, the more distinct its shape became. It was a woman's ghost, colored a sickening shade of green-gray, clothes indistinct and her back turned to the teenager for the moment. The spirit seemed to draw energy from the mortal's attention, however, and soon turned around to face her.

_Sssschlip._

The sound was hard to describe, like something soft and pulpy being stirred. As the ghost became more and more defined, Akemi realized, to her nasuea, what the cause of the sound was.

The woman's elbows, shattered. There was little more there than a soft-looking mass decorated with clumps of muscle and jarring bone, and judging by the young woman's moans of pain, it caused her pain even now.

Something clicked in Akemi's brain, and she let out a scream as Kaori's memories came to the front of her mind. A woman screaming, four sickening snapping sounds in the night...

_Run._

The teenager turned and bolted, her head and camera throbbing as they did in presences such as these. Taking the only path available, Akemi ran up the stairs with all of her speed, noting that this was moving considerably faster than Kaori had.

She kept running, stopping only to slam doors shut behind her in hopes that the closed doors would have the same effect on this spirit as they had with the ghost of the priest.

After about a minute, the girl half-ran half-stumbled into the fireplace room and, catching her balance long enough to slam the door shut, backed onto the platform. The throbbing had slowed and grown fainter, but she knew that it was just because she was a little more distant from the ghost now. It would catch up in less than a minute.

Wheeling to face her choices, Akemi forced herself to go through it logically. There were two doors she could go through in the fireplace room; one went into the entrance hall and beyond, and the other went back to the familiar staircase.

Remembering the priest's ghost that had been in the room earlier, the teen was tempted to head into the entrance hall, but she knew that the door was probably sealed. And even if it wasn't... then by leaving the mansion, she may end up damning Noriko forever, leaving her to die in this place and return as a hateful spirit.

Sensing the wraith coming closer, Akemi forced herself to run down the platform's rickety stairs and into the staircase area.

* * *

A long moment later, she stood tense at the top of the staircase. No hateful priests had come for her... yet... but the throbbing presence of the woman's spirit had cut off the moment the door closed behind her.

After a few seconds, Akemi decided to trust her sixth sense. The woman's ghost had gone for now.

But now some other presence had taken her place. Akemi's trained senses located the source almost insantly.

It was a young boy, probably no older than nine or ten. Akemi's hand went to the camera out of habit, but when she realized that he meant no harm and wasn't in any pain, she dropped her hand back to her side.

The boy seemed to be no more than an imprint, reliving something in his life as he knelt and peered at something on the ground. He reached towards whatever had been there and picked it up, but had faded into the darkness before he could stand up.

Out of curiosity, Akemi wandered over to the spot and shined her flashlight onto the ground. It was a piece of paper.

* * *

_ their eye on her since she was a baby. She looks so similar to the Maiden of the Lake that she will be perfectly suited for the Crushing Ritual. _

_ As the Lake and its Unseen Darkness is beginning to hunger and only one season of Kaori's Cleansing Year has passed, a Kujiku such as young Sachiko will be needed._

_ We should be cautious of Hisashi. He may react dangerously and unpredictably when he hears of this news._

* * *

Something in Akemi's memory flashed, and she pulled an old, torn piece of paper from her pocket and put the two pieces together. The letter was still torn and incomplete, but it all made sense now...

* * *

_ It seems that Hisashi has chosen to marry young Sachiko. I will be praying for the poor man's soul. If only he knew that the priests have had __their eye on her since she was a baby... She looks so similar to the Maiden of the Lake that she will be perfectly suited for the Crushing Ritual. _

_ As the Lake and its Unseen Darkness is beginning to hunger, and only one season of Kaori's Cleansing Year has passed, a Kujiku such as young Sachiko will be needed._

_ We should be cautious of Hisashi. He may react dangerously and unpredictably when he hears of this news._

* * *

Reading the complete letter, the mansion somehow seemed a thousand times more horrible and empty than it had before. A pretty young woman, just about to marry, had been brutally and painfully murdered for the sake of feeding the demons of some lake. The thought sent a shudder of horror through Akemi, and she felt deeply nasueated as she remembered the Holy Stone she'd seen earlier; the ghost of Sachiko had been staring at it intently, and that dark stain on the bottom...

And Kaori, too... and Chiyo, and Natsuki, and all the people who'd been sacrificed before them... how many people, how many children had died here?


	16. Flutter

14

Her thoughts were interrupted by a soft creak, and her head jerked upwards towards the study room she'd unlocked an hour or so earlier, the one that had once been sealed by a crane. The door was ajar, and a small female face... with a small flutter of the heart, she recognized it as young Kaori's... peered shyly through the crack. As soon as the little spirit recognized Akemi's gaze, she-

"Wait!"

-hastily pulled the door shut with a soft thud, not only from the door but from past it as well.

Hesitating just long enough to make sure nothing unwanted was lurking behind the door, Akemi pulled the door open, glad to find that it was still working. The room hadn't changed much, though a dusty book had sloppily been left... dropped?... on the floor. Ever curious, she bent down to pick it up.

Most of the book's pages were long torn or stained to illegibility, though the few that remained mostly consisted of elaborate sketches of the surronding area, as well as the mansion itself. All were captioned with one thing or another... "Frogs at the East River," "Back Garden at Sunset," and so on... Akemi suddenly wished she could have seen the book before it became so worn and decayed. But as soon as she made that private wish, she thought better of it as she flipped through the pages.

Three sketches of a lake from different angles, its shore completely gray, rocky, and barren of all life. All were captioned "The Lake," and nothing else. The page behind it was mostly illegible, though it seemed to give some kind of myth about the lake's waters.

The next page was even more disturbing; two children clutching eachother and screaming on the shore, their clothes soaked and a third child thrashing in the black waters. Two priests stood only feet away, watching expressionlessly. The picture was labled "Ripping Ritual, Yae Fushidi/Jun Aoyama/Sae Kosaka." The page immediately after the morbid sketch was illegible, the paper completely stained with water.

Akemi nearly threw the book in disgust when she saw the next sketch; a teenaged boy, his arms and legs badly broken in several places as he lie bleeding on a wooden floor. "Crushing Ritual, Ryo Yamaoka." The next page had been torn free, and Akemi realized she wouldn't want to read about this horrible thing anyway.

The next drawing was oddly serene, depicting a simple house with a few torii gates leading away from it. It was captioned "House of the Moon," the page following it mostly stained though a few sentences were still legible.

_On the fifth anniversiary of the Ripping, the Chosen will be taken... cleansed for a full year, bathing in the lake's waters every full moon and living in sacred iso... only after a full year has passed may she undergo the Great Walk... Kujiku may be chosen if the Unseen Darkness..._

The sketch after the blotchy history was also oddly serene; a simple wooden door with a stone path leading to it, as well as a single torii gate and flowers growing nearby. The "Amaratsu Shrine," apparently.

_The Shrine was built many years ago, first used as a simple pathway to the Lake and later made into a shrine after several Great Walks had been made. It is named after the first Maiden of the Lake, though all Children of the Lake are honored within. All may make offerings and prayers in the front part of the shrine, though only priests and Children are allowed to take the complete path to the Lake._

_A book containing the names of every known Child is kept within, though after the fire ten years ago, a second book is kept and carefully locked away by the the Head Priest._

_On the an-_

_"Only once before have siblings been put through the Ritual... Is it really wise to-"_

Akemi froze, her fingers tightening on the book as a male voice echoed out from her left, the camera on her chest beginning to hum in time with her hammering heart.

_"And all those years ago, the rituals were performed with total sucess, were they not?"_

_"But just weeks after that particular Man of the Waters took the Great Walk, the fire nearly destroyed all our records and history! Surely, it is bad luck to use siblings. Surely, there is another child we can use in place of one of the girls..."_

_"The matter has been decided, and the parents of the children already informed. There will be no more debate on this matter."_

_Bmp-bmp, bmp-bmp, bmp...bmp... bmp.........bmp....._

Akemi let out a shudding sigh of relief as the voices and presence faded, her whitening fingers slowly unclenching from the cool steel of the camera. And yet, there was still... something... here. Heavier than the soft, ambient tingle of the mansion, but not malicious or even sad.

_"It's... time." _

She turned towards the voice, flinching and withholding a gasp as her gaze fell on the ghost-white form of Kaori. But as her adrenaline rush faded, Akemi realized that this wasn't the same evil ghost that wanted to strangle and kill so desperately... her skin, though pale, was almost flesh-toned. Water no longer dripped ceaselessly from pale-white clothes and ragged hair; in fact, her hair was actually clean and pulled away from her face. Akemi felt a strange pang of sympathy as she looked into the semi-human Kaori's eyes; they were a strange, deep blue, and filled with anxiety.

The two stared at... or was it through?... eachother for a moment, and the older girl turned and started moving down the stairs. Restraining the urge to cry out, Akemi silently hurried over to the edge of the stairs just in time to see Kaori's pale shape fade into nothingness.


	17. Beneath

15

Going against her common sense, Akemi followed the wraith and hurried down the stairs. Back in the fireplace room, she nearly fell over backwards at the sight of a body on the floor; she only caught faint, adrenaline-fueled impressions of the poor soul lying there. A woman, her limbs and hair and _neck_ sprawled crazily, the break in the safety fence at the platform... her stomach churned coldly even as the ghost faded, leaving only the slightest drop in temperature behind.

Hearing a rattle, Akemi tore her eyes from the spot to see the back of Kaori's kimono passing through a door to her right, and she followed quickly, not wanting to lose the spirit.

She was back in the first major hallway of the mansion for the first time in what felt like years. Nothing had changed, of course, but Akemi couldn't deny that something felt... _wrong._ And, straining her ears, she could almost hear prayer songs in the distance...

Kaori's pale image flickered a few feet down the hall, and Akemi followed. The door at the opposite end of the hall creaked, opened by invisible hands, and she scampered into the next room quickly. (Though not without suffering a brief, paranoid image of the door slamming shut on her fingers...)

Akemi hurried into the foyer just in time to see Kaori drift through a door, and her heart jumped as she remebered that, so long ago, that door had been _locked..._ Cursing, she ran to the door and was surprised to find that it opened easily under her hands. The hallway

_of course it's a god-forsaken __**hallway**_

beyond was almost lined in paintings, and hurrying past, Akemi only caught images of water, lillies, benevolent spirits...

She flung open the hallway's one and only door, and was surprised to find herself staring _outside._

A large pair of blue, ornate doors sat on a short cobblestone path in front of her. Two torches flickered attentively at the sides, though their cheery yellow lights gave off no warmth. Kaori's spirit hovered between the lit guardians, and a telepathic sigh broke through the grave-chill of the outside air.

_"The Amaratsu shrine... named after the first Maiden to give her life to save her family..."_

There was a creaking of wood, yet the doors themselves did not move, and the apparition faded. For a moment, Akemi was afraid that they were simply too old to be opened, or were locked. But they did open, gliding silently open like unfolding wings. The scene was just too surreal, like a dream...

She shivered as she stepped past the doors into some kind of underground tunnel, the scent of-

Her observation was interrupted as the doors slammed shut behind her, and she spun around, nearly slipping as she jumped. Regaining her balance against a tunnel wall, she grimaced as some of the dirt came off on her hand. A moment later, a chill passed over her skin as she realized just how damp the earth was... the perpetual wetness reminded her too much of Kaori. Her more hostile side, anyway.

Wiping the dirt on her jeans, Akemi braced herself, and began to walk down the wormlike tunnel.


	18. Grave Chill

16

As she went, water began to drip down from the ceiling in more and more places, forming puddles that framed the dirt-trodden path under her. And as she went, Akemi couldn't shake the growing feeling that she was burying herself alive.

Whispers and sobs began to break the grave-silence as well.

_"Please... I don't want to go..."_

_"Tell Sakura I love her..."_

_"Why? WHY"_

_"For family, for safety..."_

A hundred-thousand lives, all walking towards their deaths. Akemi found herself weeping and praying all at once; somehow, these centuries' worth of pain and suffering had to be stopped.

Pausing to wipe her eyes, the teenager looked up and found herself staring at an identical pair of blue doors. Gingerly placing her hand on the old wood, her sixth sense began to beat like a second heart, and bracing herself, she pushed it open.

And before her, the past.

Kaori stood as she had when she was alive, facing away from Akemi in her beautiful white kimono. A dozen priests lined her on both sides, with the father priest standing slightly apart from them towards the lake's edge. He knelt for a moment, and Akemi felt a flutter of confusion. Was he worshipping? Blessing? He stood a moment later, and the teenager suppressed a whimper. Two rocks had been tied to Kaori's ankle, with holy characters carved into them.

The ghost began to walk forward, and Akemi covered her mouth in shock as she entered the water.

"Please... don't..."

Everything stopped.

Kaori slowly turned around to face the mortal girl, the priests and head priest fading as she moved. A pair of hateful blue eyes met Akemi's, and she found herself petrified.

"Don't..."

Kaori lunged with impossible speed, and Akemi just barely fell onto the crumbly gray earth. Whimpering in fear, she scrambled backwards as the ghost slowly righted herself in front of her, suddenly malevolent and dripping lake water. Ignoring her now-stinging palms, Akemi lifted her camera and snapped a photo.

Surprisingly, Kaori recoiled, saying nothing but hiding her face away. Using the opportunity, Akemi scrambled to her feet, narrowly avoiding another lethal lunge by the dead woman. As soon as Kaori turned to face Akemi again, she snapped another photo of her pale face. The dead woman let out a piercing scream, tearing her gaze upward and howling at the sky in pain and rage before fading.

But Akemi's sixth sense kept throbbing.

_"And so the God of Gods slew his wicked child, and his body did fall to Earth."_

Kaori was literally standing upon the black lake, now, and she began to walk towards shore. Her feet were utterly silent and intangible, making no ripples on the water's glass-like surface.

_"Though the rest of his body rotted and went to feed the Earth, his heart fell in a beautiful lake that had once been crafted by God of Gods himself. So vile was the child's hate that, even in death, his heart poisioned the waters and the very Life around it."_

Her head twitched to one side, and her eyes became oddly luminous in the dark night.

_"And so God of Gods made the Family the sacred protectors of the Lake. Our duty is not an easy one, as it is only through death and suffering that the child's dark spirit can be kept from spreading and destroying all of his father's work."_

The ghost was on the Lake's perpetually-dead shore, and Akemi began to back away in fear.

_"As part of our sacred pact with God of Gods, should the family fail in its duties, we all..."_

Akemi screamed as Kaori made a sudden dash for her throat. _"DIE!"_

The mortal let out a shuddering gasp as the wraith passed straight through her; though she suceeded in ducking and keeping her pale hands from her throat, it now felt like her whole body had been plunged in freezing water, robbing the air from her lungs and warmth from her flesh.

Gasping, she stood upright again and spun to face Kaori, just in time to see her flutter out of her periphrial vision. Spinning around, Akemi found herself unable to keep up with her image; she was perptually in the shadows of her eyesight, just out of reach...

A horrible creaking, clicking sound reached Akemi's ears, and she froze. Her eyes darted about the blackness in search of the sound, and her stomach dropped as she found it.

A small boat lie broken and unused on the shore, and Sachiko's gray-green image was slowly rising up from it. Her head lulled in Akemi's direction as the Kujiku slowly sat up, her eyes simultaneously alive in dead, numb and suffering. Her broken joints shifted horribly as she moved, bones jutting from long-torn skin and dead muscle.

Cold not-breath tickled the back of Akemi's neck. _"Chiyo... Chosen..._"

With a scream, the mortal spun around and snapped a photo purely on reflex. Kaori whimpered and drew back, shielding herself from the Camera's damaging flash. Akemi felt an almost flutter-of pity, before a freezing hand clamped down on her left shoulder.

_The boat's bottom was bloody, permanently stained by the number of Kujiku that had lain there. Pain. Pain. Elbows and knees. Want to stop feeling. Throat hurt, too. Had gotten sick._

_A whimper. Warm hands lifting, and then... nothing. passedout?_

_Wet. Cold. So cold. But maybe, numbness?cold_

_cold_

dark

***

Akemi awoke again on her back, the Camera Obscura's weight heavy on her chest. She noticed, slurrily, that the sky was totally black; no stars, no moon...

Her head remained quiet. Still. The ghosts seemed to be gone. Maybe they thought she'd died...?

_"Maiden."_

Hands on her throat.


	19. Official Ending

Official Ending

_There'd been hands around her neck, cold skin and hot bruises and the choking..._

Akemi's eyes shot open, only to clench shut moments later at the sight of the full moon peering in through the window. Too bright, but anything was bright compared to

death

... but there was no moon earlier...

... Letting her head roll to the side, she gingerly let her eyes open and adjust to the room around her. Her fingers twitched on the old wood under her, her senses slowly clicking back into place one by one. She swallowed. Her throat hurt.

After collecting her thoughts, Akemi slowly sat up to look at the room around her. Books, a bed, a round window showing a pregnant moon... she remembered it in an instant; the Children's room, where Kaori and dozens of others had stayed for a long, long year before being slaughtered like lambs. Someone was singing not far away.

The teenager stood, slowly and suddenly aware that her pockets were far lighter than they were supposed to be. Every photo, every bit of medicine, even the flashlight...

Gone, only the camera around her neck and the clothes on her body remained.

She swore loudly, regretted it with a grimace as pain laced through her delicate neck. Her skin tingled, not just with physical pain and cold and exhaustion and hunger but with... something else, intangible.

That singing. Not singing, chanting. Something twinged in Akemi's mind, not quite her sixth sense, but-

She ran for the one door she could see, each shift and thud of the camera strap around her neck like a punch to the tender flesh there. The door opened with a bit of a shove, revealing a small, modestly-decorated room beyond. Not that Akemi would have stopped to take in the details anyway, the door was ajar and night air drifted in past it...

She went through it sprinting, skidding and nearly falling; a dozen ghosts not far away, gathered beneath the broken torii gates and standing on the pier, all priests, all singing with voices that died long ago. A womannonotawomanagirl waist-deep in the water, taking slow, measured steps...

"Noriko! Wait!"

Akemi's cry was faint, strangled, and she ran without thinking. Straight through two priests (they broke apart like smoke) and into the water, dark and reflecting every beam of the moon's light-

**Cold**

The sheer chill of the water was so sharp and so sudden that Akemi fell once the waters reached her ankles, sharp rocks creating small red painful scratches against the cold dark.

_"Sometimes, if I listened, I could hear Chiyo's voice in the dark. She always wept, and so I wept with her. Even now, I can hear her sobs... The priests lied..."_

Tearing the Camera Obscura from her neck, the girl stood, stumbled back to her feet-

_"... not all of the Children go to Heaven, like they told us. Told me, told my parents..."_

-and kept running, stumbling, sloshing as the icy water crept further and further up her numbing body-

_"... I hate them all..."_

"Noriko!"

Akemi threw her shivering arms around the waist of her friend, pressing her face into her shoulder with a pained whimper. Noriko stopped, completely frozen, almost like a doll and so cold, Akemi wondered if she was too late.

"Noriko... please, speak to me..." Her voice, her chest came in sobs. "Don't be dead, don't die, please..."

The chanting of the priests came to a sudden stop, and the lake's eternal silence fell once again.

* * *

_About a year later..._

Summer holiday came, and she went to the place she would never forget.

It was a perfect day, the sun shining brightly and a soft breeze rustling the grass under her feet and the hair on her head. The distant smell of rain drifted on the breeze, too, and for this the girl shivered; ever since the events of the mansion, she'd taken a strong disliking to water. Just a shower took a ton of willpower, these days.

Cradling the flowers close to her chest, she came to her destination and knelt, placing the flowers on the grave before her. And she wept for a long time, though every tear was born in absolute silence; since the events at the mansion, she'd never been able to make a sound... Not a scream of terror when the nightmares came, not a whispered word to her classmates, or even simple laughter came from her throat anymore.

She mourned for a long time, and then, pulling a candle and match from the bag she'd brought, began to pray. She first prayed for her friend's soul, that she'd ascended happily to the afterlife as all human beings should. And then she prayed for dozens of others, for all the spirits that had been left trapped in the mansion so long ago; she felt guilty for leaving them behind, but...

Some time later, her thoughts were interrupted by approaching footsteps, and she looked up to see her father approaching.

"We don't have to go, if you're not ready yet. I was just making sure you were okay."

_I'm alright. Just another minute... _She signed in reply, reaching into her bag again and pulling out an old photo of the two girls, taken a few months before everything happened. It was of the two posing in front of the school during a particularly harsh cold snap; both of them bundled to the point where they looked like walking puffballs, but still laughing and flashing a 'V for Victory' sign.

Noriko laughed silently, placing the picture of happier times at Akemi's grave.


End file.
